


A Woman's Place

by ishafel



Series: The Backstory 'Verse [12]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-12
Updated: 2010-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surrey, 1979.  Narcissa Black takes a husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Woman's Place

When he finally has his ring on Narcissa's finger, Lucius goes to Blackhall to ask Cygnus Black for her hand. It is an archaic and patriarchal tradition, one Narcissa despises, but it is tradition. Tradition is all they have, all that separates them from animals and the Muggleborn.

Cygnus Black's grandfather fought with Grindelwald in the first great war, in Abraxas Malfoy's command. He died in Russia, during the second, after Lucius's father betrayed Grindelwald to the British. Cygnus Black is his namesake, the offspring of first cousins, and one of Lord Voldemort's inner circle.

This last is the only reason Lucius is bothering to go. He loves Narcissa, but he's spent his years as a Death Eater edging behind pillars and doublechecking corridors to avoid her father, who is prone to foaming at the mouth and falling into fits. This is, he sometimes thinks, where Bellatrix inherited it from.

Cygnus refuses him, calling him frivolous and unfocussed and his father's son--only one of which Lucius finds insulting. Lucius flies sulkily back to London and tells Narcissa about it, and she sighs and smiles at him over the growing bulk of her belly, and tells him she'll take care of it.

Three days later Cygnus slips in the bath and breaks his neck. Lucius wears black to his funeral and holds hands with his daughter, and smirks at his new in-laws. It isn't the first time it occurs to him that if Narcissa were a Death Eater the war would be long over, but it's the first time he wonders if she might be worse than Lord Voldemort.


End file.
